Gearing up for Calf Rearing this Spring

By John Kilboyle, B&T Drystock Adviser, Teagasc, Galway/Clare

With dairy beef calves arriving on beef farms at the moment, purchasing from reliable suppliers and ensuring to purchase calves that are good weight for age is crucial to limiting calf mortality and morbidity. The profitability of the dairy beef enterprise depends largely on the quality of calf that is purchased. Poor calves lead to poor feed efficiencies, weight gains and thrive, and potentially high mortalities.

Sourcing the Calf:

Purchased calves should be alert, have clear eyes, dry navel, no swelling of joints, no signs of scour or pneumonia, a shiny coat and a correct weight for its age. Ideally calves ideally should be at least 14 to 21 days old and have good weight for age (45 to 50kg at 2 weeks of age). Selecting calves from as few sources as possible will help reduce disease and infection risks on the rearing farm.

The health and feeding management on the farm of origin is very important, especially to ensure that calves have received adequate high quality colostrum after birth. Where possible gather as much information as possible on the health status of the origin herd particularly the vaccination policy of the herd.  It is beneficial to visit the farm of birth as this can be a good indicator of the potential health and quality of the calf.  However, appearance alone is a poor predictor of beef potential of the calves. Assessing appearance should be combined with assessing the genetic merit of calves for beef characteristics.

Genetics:

The Commercial Beef Value (CBV) introduced by ICBF offers buyers and sellers a better estimate of a calf’s true value. The CBV is a value that ICBF generate on all cattle that are likely to be finished as beef cattle. This includes all male and female (non-pedigree) stock bred from beef cows, dairy-bred male and female calves sired by a beef bull and male calves sired by a dairy bull.

The CBV is calculated for each animal using their terminal index, but does not include the traits for calving difficulty, gestation length and mortality. The CBV measures the potential the animal has for carcase weight, carcase conformation, carcase fat, feed intake and docility (all based on the breeding indexes of its parents). Put simply, cattle that have a high CBV will, on average, be faster growing, better shaped at slaughter, leaner and will not eat as much per kg of live weight gained. They will also be more docile.

If you are buying animals directly from another farmer, you can ask them for a print out of the CBV of the stock they are selling. Once they are in HerdPlus and have recorded the sires of their calves, farmers have access to this information. If they don’t record the sires and you want to continue buying their stock, ask them to record sires on all births in the future. Having the CBV displayed on the marts screens along with all of the other information shown for cattle in the sale ring will be a huge advantage to buyers. ICBF is currently working with marts to get the CBV displayed for eligible animals.

Feeding Programme:

On arrival, allow calves 2-3 hours rest before feeding a good rehydration electrolyte as a first feed. Feed calves 3 litres of calf milk replacer twice daily (at 12.5% solids) until they are at least 35 days old. Once a day feeding can be used very effectively from this point onwards to reduce the quantity of milk replacer fed up until weaning which encourages increased concentrate intake. Calves can be supplemented with good quality starter concentrates, and roughage in the form of good quality chopped straw (not hay). Calves should have access to clean fresh water at all times.  Ensure that the water temperature is not greater than 39°C. Calves should not be weaned until they are consuming at least 1kg calf starter/day for three consecutive days and have reached target weaning weight of 85-90kg.

Calf Health:

Scours and pneumonia are the two most common causes of ill-health in calves and they should be checked daily for both. Attention to hygiene is crucial to prevent scours. Remedial action consists of pain and fever treatment combined with rehydration and proper nutrition. Isolate them from other calves to avoid cross infection. Get electrolytes into them and do not stop feeding them milk replacer.

The underlying causes of pneumonia in calves can be very complex. Insufficient colostrum, poorly designed houses, over-crowding, inadequate nutrition and stress all increase the possibility of an outbreak. Veterinary advice should be sought for a suitable vaccination programme which should include Pasteurella and the respiratory viruses IBR (BHV1), RSV and PI-3.

Housing:

Calves should be housed in properly designed calf sheds with the correct space allowance, adequate ventilation and in very hygienic conditions with enough bedding. Calves may be kept in single pens or in groups. As a general guide a total floor area of 2.3m2 per calf (includes feed passage) with a cubic air capacity of approximately 10m3 per calf should be provided.

Ventilated housing that is free of draughts will reduce the environmental stresses on calves and adequate air changes resulting from good ventilation reduce the infection load on the calves. Prior to the arrival of each batch of calves, the shed should be thoroughly cleaned and disinfected with a broad spectrum disinfectant. Bedding needs to be kept clean and dry and pens should be set up to allow for ease of cleaning and manure removal. Work and hygiene routines should be worked out in advance to prevent young calves catching disease from older or sick calves.